Convict Marriages

Sir,?Major YVoolley's excellent article on Convict marriages in the Andamans in your March number does not appear to have aroused the comment?favourable or the reverse?which I anticipated and which it deserved. It is, however, of great interest to all those who have at heart the improvement of the criminal in the present and his disappearance in the future. As lie says, it is rather a shock to one conversant with the strict regime of European and Indian prisons to go to Port Blair and find convicts receiving pay from, and being given in marriage by, the Government. Major Woolley in Lis article, has put forward most of the arguments that exist in favour of this marriage system, but the very fact that he feels constrained to suggest improvements shows that he is not satisfied with it. I quite agree that if the marriage system is to continue,?and it is now so deeply rooted that its extermination would be a difficult matter, Major Woolley's scheme of married and bachelor villages is a sound attempt to improve it; but I do not think that he has laid sufficient stress on the two great drawbacks to the system. The first drawback is the immorality which prevails, and is bound to prevail?in villages where men outnumber the